I don’t think my mother ever made this cake but I could tell it was a recipe from Grandma’s “no fat” phase. She went through a kick in her 50s where she wanted to lose some weight and it was around the time in the early 90s where all nutritional fat was considered “evil” and all diet foods were marketed as low fat or fat free. I remember her giving me advice as a young teenager on how to lose weight and she was listing off all the high fat foods I should avoid like potato chips and cookies. The alternative she suggested “ju jubes.” Well, now that I knew they were a diet food, I went to the bulk section of the grocery store that week and bought myself a giant bag of ju jubes and ate them at will. I guess you can imagine how that went.
So here we have an incredible “no fat!!!” cake – with 1 ½ cups of sugar and canned fruit in syrup. It’s laughable now but the food wisdom has changed over time. Anyway, I’ve substituted out the syrup for canned fruit in water, but drain the water first or the cake will be a little too moist.
I think this would be a great recipe to let my kids try to make on their own. The ingredients and steps are easy (and cheap!) enough that I think they could figure this out and would be forgiving enough that it would be edible even if they don’t get the proportions and steps quite correct.
I think it would be better as a thicker cake (you would see the fruit better too!) so I’ve suggested an alteration for that but would need to be tested.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 large can (796 ml) fruit cocktail or crushed pineapple, drained (14 oz)
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 cups flour
Yield: 1 large sheet pan cake (serves 12)
Preheat oven to 350o
Beat eggs slightly. Drain the fruit cocktail to reduce cake moisture. Mix in all other ingredients, except flour. Add flour and mix well.
Bake in a 9×13” greased pan for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely and then top with frosting if you wish. Vegan cream cheese frosting was delightful.
Alternatively, for a thicker cake, you could try baking it in a 9×9″ square pan but it would likely need to bake for somewhere between 50-60 minutes.
